Say Something

Yes there’s a tree*… but also some other interesting looking stuff at around 5:30 in the morning recently.

The picture is gratuitous. I wanted to make a post and posts on here look ugly without pictures.

This post is about “art” again. And “rules”. All over the internet I see people saying the same thing almost like political correctness. “There are no rules” they say. Often qualified by “you have to know the rules in order to break them”. I think this is bunk.

Oh you want an explanation? Okay. Let’s see now. Okay I’ll be politically correct and say “this is my opinion” and YMMV, etc. but there is a rule and it always applies no matter what kind of work I’m doing. The rule is “say something”.

The rule can be broken just as any other one can. But when I break this rule I get bad pictures every time. There is no way to get a good picture when this rule is broken except by complete accident. So it’s a rule.

I see lots of discussions where people seem to have a very narrow definition of communication. They think it only applies to commercial work and that “art” is exempt from it. Communication is getting something across to someone else. And that doesn’t apply to “art”? Are you kidding me? Well I guess it might not apply to a bunch of what is supposed to pass for art today but maybe that isn’t truly art.

Something should be gotten across to the viewer. It could be a feeling or an idea. Whatever is supposed to get across is the “message”. And that only means that which is communicated. It is not limited to “buy this” or “believe that” though it might do if that is what you wanted to say. It could mean “I love her” or “Wow look how yellow that flower is”.

In the picture above I wanted to show what early morning light does for the view outside my window. I’m not often up and about at that time so it was meant as a reminder to me so I can say “I’ve seen that. Yeah it looks good”.

*Cream “World of Pain” You’d have to be “of a certain age” as they say.